I've said on many occasions to family and friends that i dislike every candidate for president. This is not to say that I dislike all equally. Though I'm going to be equally hard on Republicans and Democrats Alike.

Here's a list of who I hate and why:

Reasons to Hate Mike Huckabee

• Against abortions even in cases of rape or incest. Seriously? If Roe V. Wade tought us anything, is that children mothers don't want to bear are usually likely to become criminals. Does that mean we should punish unborn fetuses for the crimes of their father? It's tough to say in general if Abortion is good or bad. But in the case of rape or incest, I'm all for the woman's right too choose. It's perverse to pass on a rapists genes if the technology exists to eliminate it. ( I'm not saying that being a rapist is genetic or behavioral but the biological measure of success is what an economist would call a perverse incentive).
  
• Against Same Sex Marriage. Marriage existed long before the idea of government. It's power constitutionally reserved for states to manage the bureaucracy of it. Keep your opinions out thank you. Also believes "homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle." Church and State are seperate. My Supreme Religion doesn't believe in sin. To speak of sin is heresy.
• Teaching Creationism in Schools. The point of teaching evolution in schools is not to say that it is correct, rather it presents the scientific method, and with more modern research, inductive reasoning. Teaching Intelligent Design at best suggests that a creator set fundamental universal constants. Unfortunately it's an untestable theory (even if it may be correct) and thus not science.
• Israel is a God Given Right. Huckabee has said, "that the Jews have a God-given right to reclaim land given to their ancestors and taken away from them." Lets think about this statement. I'm not opposed to reclaiming land per se, but who gave their ancestors in the first place? I'm not opposed to Semites living in present day Israel, but please remember that palestinians are Semites too. Are there palestinian terrorists? Of course. But there is also the Israeli Apartheid. Both Sides need to talk about this issue.
• "... The real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives." According to the Bible Jesus was just a man, not god (New International Version, Dean's favorite!). No matter how good a now dead man is, I'm not accepting him into my life, let alone to govern my life.
  
• John 14:28 "... the Father is greater than I."
• John 20:17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
• John 7:16 Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.

Mike Huckabee needs to remeber that as an ordained minister he should respect the bible.
John 1:18  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only...

Mike Huckabee according to your own beliefs, you have not seen god, thus leave your views of religion out of this state. Thanks. Brother Sarkar.

There I finally said it.

Certainly it is true that unpaid linux developers do not contribute to the GDP of the United States. But in terms of actual welfare Linux is much better for almost all involved.

Windows Drives GDP in the following ways.

1. Forces uneducated consumers to purchase a new computer every two years. (See 3)
2. Forces needless tech support.
3. Drives the spyware and virus industry.

Linux on the other hand, is free. I never have to deal with spyware. And my computer stays as fast as when i first installed linux on it. I now no longer need to buy new hardware or reformat my computer every six months. My girlfriend gave me her old laptop to use. It has 128mb or Ram and 800Mhz Processor. Sadly it runs faster than her 3.2Ghz p4 w/ 512mb ram. And my girlfriends computer has no spyware to speak of; She even keeps the windows visual effects to a minimum for "best performance".

Linux is stable. Except for one exception with one friend (which is entirely my fault), I don't recieve any tech support requests from any of my friends that have linux running on their boxes. This is from windows users.

Linux is generally very well received after just 1 week of trying it. That's not to say linux is suitable for anyone. If you are a gamer I would suggest dual booting.

If your needs are like most college students, Linux is finally easy enough for non geeks. I list here the things most college students use.

College Student Needs: Browsing. Stable Instant Messaging. Library style music player. Office Suite. Image Manipulator. Stability and Speed

I'll break it down among the categories.

Web Browsing.
Firefox is the browser of choice on Linux and Windows. It is largely the same on both. This is a tie on both operating systems. Firefox needs to be configured properly to have the full speed it is capable. It is a matter of configuring the nglayout.initialpaint.delay, network.dns.useIPv6 and network.http.* variables.

Firefox behaves faster on my linux machine because of intelligent dns caching provided by dnsmasq. Windows also has DNS caching so this is also a tie. Cost $0

TIE

Instant Messaging
Instant Messaging is far better on linux. Specifically gAim is a lot better than Aim Triton. Triton is slow and has tons of memory leaks. gAim provides logging, spell checking, autoreplacement, idle time control and buddy pounces. You'd have to shell out for Dead Aim on Windows to achieve this functionality. (Mac Users should check out Adium. It uses libgaim and is the best OS X im client).

Go with Linux

Library Style Music Player.
I'm gonna assume everyone uses library style music players. Playlist based players are history. Itunes is a strong application. Amarok, and Banshee are both better however.

Amarok will actively fetch not just the album cover, but lyrics and the wikipedia article of the artist for the music being played. Amarok also allows you to separate the Database backend. This is usefull on a small network with the music files on a NAS. This is impossible with iTunes. iTunes does have 100% compatability with all ipods. The current stable version of my favorite flavor of linux doesnt support adding videos to the 5.5 gen ipods. The next version to be release this april will however. Stay tuned.

Go with Linux if you don't have a 5.5g Video Ipod
Go with Windows if you have a 5.5g Video Ipod and can't live without video.

Office Suite.
Both MS Office and OpenOffice.Org are great products. For the most part, OpenOffice.org is as good if not better than MS Office.
If you have advanced Visual Basic Macro needs you'll have to stick to MS Office.

Need VBA MACROS? Go with MS Office on Windows. Cost $128
Otherwise go with OpenOffice.org on Linux. Cost $0

Image Manipulator.
This is a deal breaker for many. Photoshop CS2 is excellent and can't be beat. The GIMP however is a pretty good alternative. If photoshop elements is good enough for your needs, the GIMP will do just fine. If you are in the 1% of professionals that need more sophisticated capabilities, Stick with Mac and Photoshop.

Stability and Speed.
Linux wins easily here. It is far faster than any comparable version of windows. It is far more stable. I reboot my machine at most once every month.

Verdict
Unless one of the above categories forces you to stick with windows, go with Linux. It's faster, easier to use and cheaper.
An OEM copy of Vista Home Premium goes for $ 119 on newegg. And games don't even run well with vista. (yes you need to purchase hardware to by and OEM copy). Expect to shell out $250 not counting antivirus software if you plan to run windows at all.

As for me, I'm keeping my $250, and my sanity running linux.

The 945G graphics on the intel mac mini card has strange video modes if you have a widescreen monitor. They need to be rewritten to support widescreen modes.

If you are running ubuntu, you need to enable the universe repositories.

In a terminal run the command

$ sudo nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list

remove the # sign to uncomment the universe repositories.

Ctrl+O will save and Ctrl + X will exit.

Next we need to update apt and upgrade our system

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Finally we can install 915resolution, a video bios mode hack
$ sudo apt-get install 915resolution

915resolution will automatically try to detect your panel. If you have a 20WMGX2 this will fail.

$ sudo 915resolution -l

sudo 915resolution 5a 1680 1050 32
Password:
Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.2

Chipset: 945GM
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36

Patch mode 5a to resolution 1680x1050 complete

Last night, Mr. Morel, my roommates father passed away. There is so much death around me. It really is winter. All I can do is help my roomate with his school work.

I feel really unsettled. I think i could be real ugly if i'm pushed right now. I'm def. going to the gym to work somethings out today.


RIP Mr. Morel.

My favorite teacher Mr. Peter Arthur passed away.

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3481418

Good men must die, but death can not kill their names. I hope you are free, Sambursky.

I am a ninja.

Frisbee

I got up feeling really crappy.. and I walked to east and I took the scenic route so it took me forever. I had breakfast at Whitney. The vegan french toast actually wasnt bad. Kt, Bob and myself played frisbee in the sloped field across from east. Poor Bob got hurt bad and has bruise half as big as his ass cheek in the leg. We got to 50 consecutive passes without dropping the frisbee once, which is quite an acomplishment since the wind was decent today.
After that we went to the dairy bar and I had the worst milkshake ever; Bob finished it.

I haven't done a regular update in a while. I will try to make this post as brief as possible.

Apart from feeling slightly under the weather, my thumb is healing up pretty good... I can take the splint off for good periods of time though my range of motion is quite poor now. Training almost every day has definately improved my capacity. I feel very peaceful after I workout.

My econ classes are quite easy; though they are tedious and involve more work than I originally thought. Japanese is really fun since it's coming easily to me and our instructor is so lively and funny. Karate and Jujutsu are intense but really fullfilling. Still Even if I workout at everytime.. I'll be lucky if I can get a Dan grade in WSR by the time I graduate.

Besides class, I spend most of my time hanging out with my roomates, KT, Jason, Fannucci and Mike. KT and I are going to join the ballroom dancing club this semester which should be really fun. The first lesson is this coming Monday. The lesson teaches the Rhumba and waltz.. which shouldn't be so bad... Although I can really only do a simple quarter turn waltz.

So life at Uconn continues much as it has this past decade. Of interest is a new advertisement for Uconn. It's mildly amusing. As an aside ladies, do you think he's cute?

I know its random, but my best friend's band came out with their album recently. Buy it -- it's sweet.

providence n: The care, guardianship, and control exercised by a deity; divine direction. [source].

Last night around 10 P.M. I was talking to the Adlman sisters minus becka. I thought it was mildly amusing that they were both talking to me online, and I had a picture in my mind that Heidi and Kim were both in the living room on their laptops talking to me on aim; neither aware of the other. When I mentioned this to Heidi, she said Kim wasn't in the room with her, and curiosity made her ask what Kim and I were discussing. It happened to be her back.

I found it very amusing that Heidi should ask what Kim and I were talking about since it turned out to be the obvious. Almost as if it was fate for Heidi to ask such a question and such a mundane answer to be the response. I was feeling symptoms of deja-vu and I though it seemed to be more than merely coincidence. I suppose my sense of humor is weird but bear with me.

Later Kim was curious as to how much I knew about her, and I said to her I had similar questions lurking in my mind about how much she knew about me. Kim and I afterwards had a very nice discussion on what constitutes active information gathering and what doesnt. Kim said something very interesting, along the lines of if the information is available people will find it.

After I went away to do some packing and other college stuff, My aim client notified me I had a new message. Aparrently Ilana found this post I had written on the 18th. In another situation the sheer unlikelyhood of the two events being close together would have tickled my funnybone.

Ilana, I never intended for you to read that post. I had just changed formats that day and the number of historical posts that showed up increased without my knowledge. That wasn't directed to you specifically. It was more of an observation and more specific evidence for an earlier post. I'm sorry you had to read that slightly out of context or read it at all.

After spending some time and having a nice family dinner, I went over to Heidi's and we watched When Harry Met Sally. It was a lot of fun, and good to see Meg, Heidi, Kim, Becka, and Ilana and Cronin before I left for school.

The AM and early PM

Today was great fun so far. After waking in the usual un-sun-godly hour, I had breakfast and did a little meditation. After my meditation I didn't particularly feel like interacting with anyone so I decided to ditch on TD waffle and I called Ian saying so around 6:40 ish. Cronin decided to call me and nag me again and again, which while though not endearing in itself, did remind me that this would be the last time I could see Scott for a while. At TD waffle I got a 2 egg and cheese and sausage sandwich with homefries and a side order of steak tips. Yummy. I originally intended to go running with Kim but instead went running with Heidi since poor Kim wasn't feelin well. I'm glad I got some good exercise, I think I only run once that much when intercepting a very drunk friend and comming all the way from carriage house to where she was ( Near Buckley/Vahn Der Meden). So that was nice and really generous of her to take me :)!

Poor Kim... I mean she was fine till I came over....

Yesterday Night

Yesterday night, my parents wanted me to stay home so I did for the longest time (Till around 10:00). Then I decided to give Erin a call and say goodbye to her since I figured this was the one night this week she could possibly be free. I walked to her house (remarkably in 12 minutes so my pace must be around 5.2 mph walking). And had desert and a sort of second dinner with her family. It was really nice to see her. While I do think that that 2003 Geyser Peak Chardonnay was like bottled sex in terms of goodness... Okay I could have glass after glass of that even if you should in theory have a red with red meat. It still amazes me that I can never be mad at her for a lengthy period of time (by lengthy I mean anything more than a half hour).
 

Due to many recent cooking discussions with my friends... I've decided to compile my thoughts on the essence of what currys are. This is part 1 of a 5 part mini series on currys.

Part 1: What is Curry and how are they similar?
Part 2: North Indian Curries -- Punjab, Kashmiri, Bangladeshi
Part 3: South Indian Curries
Part 4: Thai Curries -- Red Curry, Green Curry, and Yellow Curry.
Part 5: Polynesian Curries -- Shrimp Coconut Curry
Appendix: Variations on a theme: Japanese Salad Dressing, Index of spices and names used in specialty shopes
----

What makes a Curry

Curry as defiend by Wikipedia is ``any of a great variety of distinctly spiced dishes best known in Indian and Thai cuisine but found in many other countries.''

Curry comes from the Tamil kuri meaning sauce. One should note Tamil is Dravidian and therefore not derived from Sanskrit or any other Indo-Aryan language. As such the curries common and present in northern India are a completely different cuisine, as is the case Thai cuisine. If you attempt to make Thai cuisine with a south indian curry powder you will get food similiar to that made in Singapore. (For mikes dad, let it be known that Tamil is an official language of Singapore)... But I digress!

What is similar in most curry preparations

Since curries are so different in so many cuisines, I will start with the commonalities. There is but one.The element which is so universal in most curries is the pan frying of certain spices and ingredients. I say certain because first timers often do not appropriately fry the correct spices or for long enough or increase certain spices if trying to use a low oil method. Some subtle aroma's and flavors are soluable in non polar substances much more easily than in nonpolar compounds (compare to Italian, Spanish and French cuisine that circumvents this delicate balance issue by using alcohol -- a substance which dissolves both polar, semi-polar and non polar substances*).

The universal commonalites abruptly end there. I could say most curries have salt in them... But so does almost any food that tasts good. Stay tuned for Part 2: North Indian Curries -- Punjab, Kashmiri, Bangladeshi

Yesterday was loads of fun. After going for a very brief jog with Kim, Heidi, and Joe I took a shower and went minigolfing with Cronin, Nick Pappas, Meg and Heidi at Richardson's Dairy where the beautiful flower that I was given wilted. We ate dinner at Sweet Basil. While the resteraunt and food has improved greatly, it's still not a top notch Thai resteraunt... although probably a good place to go eat within Andover. As a benchmark, you can say the pad thai was twice as good as the one ordered by Ilana at the Burlington Cheesecake Factory. After dinner we continued on to the Showcase Cinema's Lawrence where we saw 40 Year Old Virgin. All in all the movie was quite funny but some of the moments were overly sappy!

It's too bad Ilana didn't come with us... She might have had a fun time except for the food... But as I recall Heidi said Ilana was eating with her sister anyways.

As my paternal grandfather is dead, my father brought back many of his medals, trophies, and even his battle standard . So yeah there is a ton of stuff around the house that says Maj. Gen. S.N. Sarkar.... I am not the S. N. Sarkar those artifacts are refering too...but I'm glad my initials are the same as his. I really should adopt the flag as part of the symbols for my new family line I'm gonna create.

Move In

Next week at the same time that I am writing this during the day, I will already be moved in and helping friends move in to their rooms. I will be living at Eddy 523, Alumni due to my seniority in credits, with my roommates Bob and Steve.

As far as I know, I will be bringing the Fridge and Microwave, Steve will be brining the TV and Bob will be bringing himself.

I still need to loose a few pounds of fat to be competetive during class... Daily running and more ankleweights will be needed. For now... the 5lb wristweights I have are going to be moved into service. It's still gonna be a week or two before I up the ankleweights. I also need to get new gi's... I wonder if Mizuno will give me a discount for being a Riptide employee? Whatever I'll just tell them I'm buddy buddy with Jimmy Pedro and they should give me a chunk of change off.

Love Sac

My friends went to love sac without me. I can't be mad at them since they went 20 minutes before I got up (Yes they went at 4:20 AM); But for future refrence they should call me :). Sam got his love sac at 96% off. That's a deal. It's a good thing I didnt go with them because I really should spend less of my money even if I am making plenty of it.

Last Riptide Home Game

That's right folks, tonight there will be the last riptide home game of the year. We won the last game 3-2 and tonight promises to be a great finale to a fun season. I still have to get Jeff something nice perhaps from Milan's. It's too bad I can't go to the employee/staff/player/coach dinner thing, But I have to eat with my family.

Yes... I do have biological parents; But they are imaginary and only I can see them.

I made pasta and tomato sauce and fried eggs for lunch today.
( Tomato sauce recipie ) Need I say more?

Statement(s) of the day

I've found my outlook on life is very different than everyone else that I meet. Because of this... I will post one of my core beliefs or a fundamental law, or some anecdote which I find to be particularly enlightening. I usually keep these in a journal but I will share them and their original classification that I have assigned them.
( Statements )

I dreamed for the first time in three and a half years. Must have been the nacho cheese, or the rye bread I had in the morning.

I was heading back to school with Cronin, Heidi, Ilana, Ian, Scott, Jackie, Meg, and Margret Pyle (who I have never met, never spoken to, and never seen). It was a caravan operation and I had so many people in tow beacuse there was a trader joe's near campus. After going down 135 and taking the directions given to us by mapquest we did not come upon a trader joe's but an old abandoned farm house. Heidi and Ilana, unbound by masculine pride, were in Heidi's honda accord and decided to stop at the farmhouse to ask for directions. Ian, Scott, and Jackie all of whom were in the Ian's mom's white van decided to follow. Incidentally, Ian had told his mother he was going to Trader Joes before he left. Mike myself, and Meg and Margret decide to go to go back on campus to help me move in and find proper directions.


After settling in we go using our new directions, but we end up at the same place. We decide to enter the farm. The Owner of the farm is a young girl not much older than Molly, and she looked similar in my dream. She says that she's tired of people coming looking for trader joe's then leaving. Something is errily creepy about the farm house. Like and escher painting or something else which doesnt fit just right. She invites us to have tea with her. How can we refuse... she seems so sweet.

I'm about to take a sip of the coffee, when Mike comments on the almond and nutty flavor of the coffee. It's too late. I havent taken a sip but I feel sleepiness come over me in waves.

I wake in a ballroom that has many tables in it. Each table has a play tea set. In table next to us I see Heidi, Ilana, Ian, Scott, and Jackie. All of their eyes are glazed and dilated. The tea original batch of tea was spiked to not only put us to sleep but to make us chemically dependent.

I force myself to focus at the far end of the hall, where I examine the occupants. All the men have 15-20 years of facial growth. Fear sets in... The girl who welcomed us could have only been 11 years of age. My legs won't move. Fake Molly sits down at the table and asks me what kind of tea I would like. I pretend to drink a little earl grey but dont swallow it... Instead i spit out the contents into some spongey bread, and as i wipe my face with a napkin I remove it from my mouth. After the tea everyone seems to fall asleep so I pretend to do the same. I see an exit. I stab a fork in my leg and the pain erases my fear. I'm awake and in my room.

Moral of the story: Don't use map quest.

Riptide Game

We lost again, and we were mildly understaffed due to the posturing of our team's bubbas . Poor Ilana didn't get any rest.

Applebee's

Jeff pulled a fast one on me... I applaud his effort... I'll get him something nice to eat for Ilana, Kim and myself. It was fun, but we shouldnt have dragged poor Heidi there!

I guess others are curious why I am single. This is bothering me. Is it because I push people away, because I'm evil at heart, abnoxious, iratating, insufferable for large periods of time, ugly, just friends material, a no talent ass clown, a hot air bag, too weird, too conservative, obsessed with my ancient bloodline, thinking i'm smarter than I am, too much maintainance, seeking a mate when most girls are looking for fun, or just a hold over from a different century? Ladies I would appreciate your candor on the subject

Statement(s) of the day

I've found my outlook on life is very different than everyone else that I meet. Because of this... I will post one of my core beliefs or a fundamental law, or some anecdote which I find to be particularly enlightening. I usually keep these in a journal but I will share them and their original classification that I have assigned them.
( Statements )

mono sodium glutamate
Is it a meat tenderizer?
1 <-- MSGTRUTH
2 <-- Aginamoto (one of the largest producers of MSG)... that also claims msg is perfectly good for your body by using the argument that since glutamate is found in the body... its okay... That's like saying since testosterone is naturally produced in really small quantatites in the female body it's fine for a female athlete to take in more... While this site is dumb and tries to say msg is wonderful... they'd probably advertise msg as a tenderizer if it was since they want to market their product in as many ways as possible.
3 <-- MSG INFO

Just do a google search my friends.
Need I say more? Not at all. It's just like I said in my earlier rant... even the smart ones blindly accept what they have been told as true and will argue about it with you Why not take a minute to evaluate what you said? A single bound peptide does not make an enzyme god damn it! And for the record I hate biology. A 1520 is a measly score on the SAT's anyways. Knowledge and intellegence are two different things my dear.

The Game

( we lost ) After the game I went back to Heidi's house and gave Kim a back rub and helped Heidi carry money upstairs. Kim has decided that she wants to ``clone me and keep me in her closet''. Thank god I know basic rope untying tricks and in the worst case I can dislocate my shoulder to escape to freedom...

Strength

Today just after I professed my greatest respect for Arthur, our security guard, to the Adlman Sister's Nana, I had a chance to talk to him. I'm not good with dealing with people, nor am I especially sharp, but I wouldnt say I was a simpleton. Something about Arthurs character commands respect and I trust him. It began as another simple information gathering endeavor. The girls' Nana, claimed she was too old for Arthur (On a side note she knows Arthur is married), so I wanted to figure out Arthurs age. I made up my mind to go by him while I recovered the ticket pricing sign. As I was working to get it down as briskly as possible, He was smiling so I asked him why... He wan't smiling. He began by saying that he had always worked alone... either in a walking patrol or in a cruiser by himself. He talked about how he never backed down... and he never got hurt. He mentioned he was going to a friends wake... Even at his age death is still hard. His friends who worked at the desk and called him clint out of respect. They're all dying; A product of the diseased environment that they worked in. In the past 6 months so many of them have died.As an orphan who pushed him self to success its comforting that his 4 kids will remember him when he goes. His eldest son got married in Sweeden... where the father he never met lived. I'm sure in his mind those confrontations couldn't be helped. One day I hope to have that kind of strength . That's the kind of power I want. I want to be undefeatable in my time!

Well Ian's thoughts on me are in. Basically it's this blog thing where I give my name and I must post his responses... Since I am obligated by my friendship with Ian... here goes!

( Ian's Thoughts )

I lied in before when I said I was indifferent to giving backrubs. My new official position is that I enjoy giving backrubs. (Thank you Xandra)! Though I owe kelly and becka more.. I had to run and do riptide things. I like making people feel good. It's a double edged sword though. You feel bad if you can't relieve a friends suffering. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved, and Joy shared is joy doubled.

Today at the game the Riptide won. In other news, Dr. B. is single.

Frisbee Update

Last night I got around to playing some frisbee with Scott and Alex. Meg had to leave just about when Alex and I arrived on the field. Scotts frisbee flies really well and the lights give you really good depth perception so you can catch better than normal.

Last Riptide Home Series

It's amazing to think that in just 5 short games with the Juggs, all of the home games with the Riptide will be over. I feel i've gotten to know the Adlman family really well, and I'm sure I'll miss them during the off season. Kelly is graduating and getting married all in the next year and I wish her well. It's sad to think about how many people you meet and you'll most likely never see again.

Training

My aerobic capacity is severly limited... After the sublux earlier in the summer I havent been working out hard enough... I really need to drop 12 lbs in the next 2.5 weeks to be ready for school. And on that note, I'm really anxious to go running with Kim again. I havent done that in a while and I'm looking forward to starting up again.

Stupid thing... I'll finish this quickly and go play frisbee. I guess all the cool kids are doing it.
( Information Questionaire )

Frisbee

I've been wanting to be active all summer and finally as the break comes to a close, my wishes have been reciprocated by my good friend Scott.

We're going to play frisbee in the park, and it's gonna be fun! Finally a little exercise instead of hanging around our friends basement or watching Sex and the City with the girls at work or playing minigolf at Richardson's Dairy .

It's so much fun to do something active. Sports are underated these days and geeky people like me need more exercise if they are to survive multiple kinesiology classes next semester. Thank god for ankle-weights. They help you train!

I've started gaining weight again though... and it's certainly a bad thing... I could easily loose 15-20lbs without loosing any strength. I should get back to a daily free body routine and a jog everyday.

Lunch

Earlier in the day (around lunch time) I did a little experiment with the burger recipie I posted yesterday. I've found that their is a balance to worcestershire sauce and bread crumbs. More worcestershire sauce = more flavor.. but since its soggyier you need more bread crumbs which reduces the flavor. The solution is to cut back the worcestershire sauce to 1/2 cup, and add 1/5 cup Bordeaux wine while keeping the crumbs constant. The merlot I had made the burger too sweet. The Bordeaux being a mixture of 40 % Merlot and some Cabernet Sauvignon worked well. Then again, I suppose the dryness and tart of the wine necessary might depend on the worcestershire sauce. In my experience french's worcestershire sauce doesnt have tamarind and has more sugar so a dry and more tangy wine would be necessary with that brand of worcestershire sauce. As for the comment about 2/3 cups of breadcrumbs not being enough, well it turns out that the 2.5 slices of the wheat bread I used constitutes about 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs. 2/3 didnt seem to fall apart on me. Also in the last revision I never mentioned salt or peper, but those were also included. Since I also usually put bacon bits and chopped green chillies in the mix, I'll also put those ingredients down. Does anyone know what kind of bread will produce the best breadcrumbs for burgers?

Revised Recipie:
2lbs ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup bordeaux wine, or any red wine that is sufficiently dry.
1 tbls chopped garlic
4 tsp montreal* grill spice
1/4 large onion chopped
2/3 cup breadcrumbs**.
3 tsp salt
10 turns of a pepper mill
3 medium size green chillies chopped
2 bacon strips well fried and crumbled fine.
*: If you don't have montreal grill spice use paprika, garlic powder, red chili powder.
**: White seems to work better than wheat as a source of breadcrumbs... gotta experiment with this variable some more.
MMMMMM :) I'm getting hungry.